Yes.
I am not a climate scientist, but I am a scientist. I know how to read the literature and interpret the back-channels of scientific opinion; I can tell the difference between "this is what we suspect might be happening" and "this is what's happening".
This is what's happening:
James Hansen was the head of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies from 1981 to 2013; he now runs the Program on Climate Science, Awareness and Solutions at Columbia University's Earth Institute. For th…

A thought on more "qualitative" badges, and the potential for "nominations".
There have been contributors who have shown two behaviors that I think ought to be encouraged by the bbs, but current badges have no way of reflecting this. and both would require a process of nomination and voting to approve their distribution.
content expert - to a person who clearly has some professional knowledge, or at least specific passion for, a specific topic, and spends time setting the record straight o…

Not necessarily the best call either, as its not nearly that simple. Most fisheries for larger, well known fish species are in deep shit. Few of them are sustainable. I try to limit myself to those wild fisheries that are clearly sustainable. Or at least fish pulled from smaller, independent fishing operations and coops. These are typically the operations that are most environmentally benign. And for the most part I attempt to stick to fish caught, distributed, etc in my region. Asside from that…

Well thank you, now I wish I bothered to cite some things. If anyone is more curious about these things google is your friend. Seafood Watch is the usual go to for ratings on sustainability of various things on a fish by fish basis.

When in doubt eat farmed shellfish raised in your own country. Its the single most environmentally beneficial thing you can eat from the water.

Some things would be so much simpler if we all lived in small communities. You're looking for a new place to live in a new town and you arrive and you see "Welkum To Grugsham: Perpulashun: Thurdsay" you know the school system sucks, but you can probably get away with cheating on your taxes.

Before this conversation encourages anyone else to post pics of spiders, and I'm looking at you @ficuswhisperer:
[image]
I have another relevant story to the thread to share. I gave a guest lecture tonight on gender and negotiation in librarianship, which is particularly important in my field because we hover at ~85% female. I gave my usual caveat at the beginning. While we often we talk about gender in terms of male and female, it's the societal constructs commonly assigned to both that I'…

One of the issues here is that "race" ≠ "ethnicity", despite the two being used interchangeably in common language.
"Race" is a social construct that is subject to social interpretation and alteration over time, and is very situational, often based on misleading phenotype cues.
"Ethnicity", in contrast, is a "what regional population(s) are your ancestors from?", which does have biological considerations for bone structure, disease resistance/susceptibility, genetic disorders, and othe…

I think we sometimes forget just because you can have a thing, doesn't mean you should.
As a RET Army veteran, I have used countless types of lethal weaponry. I have never owned a gun in my private life and have never seen fit to have a reason why I would. I have been hunting on a handful of occasions and the hunting preserves I have visited had rifles on hand for me to use.
I do not think it is necessary or reasonable to ban all guns, anyone who wants to own a hand gun for home or personal…